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One of the top requests we’ve had for a while now was for more templates. Well, thanks to our new fleet graphics partner, your requests have been answered!

New Vehicle Wrap Templates

We’ve added some of the most widely requested vehicle wrap models to the site. These include:

4 Door Sedan Wrap

Transit Van Wrap

Transit Connect Van Wrap

Pickup Truck Wrap

Traditional Cargo Van Wrap

Box Truck Wrap

More Vehicle Wrap Templates On The Way

We have more wrap templates in the works, and want to know your feedback! Let us know what wrap templates your shop or business would like to see next on the site, and we’ll do our best to add them! Thanks to everyone that provided feedback on what templates they wanted to see leading up to this addition, and we hope that we were able to put up most of the main vehicle models that you needed. What would be next for you? Tractor Trailers? Exotic Sports Cars? Trains? Lets us know!

Fleet Graphics Templates

Many of the new templates are great for fleet graphics for commercial fleets, covering many of the most common types of fleet vehicles that are out there on the roads today. If there are more fleet vehicle models that are not covered by one of the categories of vehicle graphics templates we have, please let us know!

Why Wrap a Vehicle; Why not Paint it

It is common practice for our customers to request quotes for the price of wrapping a vehicle from local wrap shops. What is unusual is that when the quotes come in, the customer reacts something like , ‘Maaco was only a few hundred dollars for a paint job’ or ‘That’s a lot less than painting!’ So we became curious, why do some of our customer think a vehicle wrap pricing is reasonable, while others scream bloody murder over the cost compared to painting? We found the simple answer to be that painting varies just as the quality of a wrapped vehicle varies.

We are no expert on vehicle painting but it is our understanding a vehicle should be sanded, painted and primed before it is actually painted. Just like other processes, the quality of the paint can make a huge difference. The vehicle is usually out of commission for two weeks. That being said, we have recently learned you can skip the first steps and go right to the painting to decrease the cost. So, a $500 Maaco paint job can seem like a great deal, but not include all the extras and look awful in a few years when it needs to be redone. And, how are you going to paint your logo and artwork?

If you have been considering a vehicle wrap in lieu of a paint job, consider why you might choose a wrap. A car wrap is removable. Wrapping a vehicle means you can include various visual tricks you can’t achieve with paint. This might mean logo vehicle branding or digital logo images. Wraps last about 5-7 years and are completed in just two days. The box truck wrap can go over rivets, too. Wrapping, once removed, does not lower the value of your car. So go ahead and design that wrap on custom-car-wraps and get the quotes from your local wrap shops.

SEMA Vehicle Wrap News from Las Vegas

SEMA is the world’s largest automotive specialty-equipment trade show. The automotive industry comes to SEMA to see new trends and the most tricked-out cars on earth. Various initiatives in the vehicle wrap were announced and some major companies in the car, truck and overall vehicle wrap industries showed off some of awesome samples of unique wrap applications.

Avery Dennison, Epson and SkinzWraps

Avery Dennison, Epson and SkinzWraps teamed up to wrap a million-dollar Bugatti Veyron, the world’s fastest street-legal car, in a look as powerful as the car itself. The first-ever wrap of a Veyron was presented it at the Epson booth at SEMA in Las Vegas last month. The car and the wrap attracted a lot of attention at one of the largest conventions in the United States.

The Super Sport Veyron was wrapped with Avery Dennison’s best-in-class vehicle wrap material, MPI 1005 Supercast Easy Apply RS, which was printed on an Epson Stylus Pro GS6000 printer. SkinzWraps designed the graphics and installed the material on the car.

Many car enthusiasts, restylers and customizers are using digital graphics and wraps to reflect their individual style. The beauty of a car wrap is that, if the customer gets tired of the wrap or graphic design, it can easily be removed and the paint on the car will look the same as the day the wrap was installed.

Velvet Car Wraps

Velvet Cars / Floc1, Inc. announced the availability of velvet car wraps. They teamed up with the guys at Wrap Experts at the Sema show with a velvet wrapped Fisker Karma. They were awarded the 2012 SEMA Global Media Awards Winner for the innovative application of this unique wrap products. Actually, according to Robby from Wrap Experts, “we are so honored to have been recognized with 4 SEMA international media awards”

According to Frank Fuzzy, President of Velvet-Cars, the velvet wrap is designed to attract the eye and protect your vehicle. Velvet Elite Wrap 9100 brings a totally new visual and tactile experience to the automotive industry. It is your escape from boring, conventional standard paint or very expensive custom paints. Your vehicle becomes an emotional factor… it is beautiful, unique and suddenly so different to drive. Our new product offers one of the nicest customization options possible in the world. Our films are removable, they do not damage your vehicle, and, on the contrary, they were designed to protect its exterior.

Go on line and design your car wrap!

Advertising through time has become more innovative. Technology has made ads more available to many people with the use of TV ads, radio, and the internet. All these methods produce positive results but they often cost more and can be quite heavy to small businesses. Vehicle wraps however is a unique way of promoting your products by using vehicles as mobile billboards. It is quite easy, custom-car-wraps.com lets you design a car wrap on line, make a choice out of a bunch of wrap shops in your area, have it printed and laminated on any type of car. This method is becoming more popular these days because it is less expensive than any other forms of advertising.

The design of your mobile billboard should be attractive in order to be noticed by people. Through the design your car wrap on line with custom-car-wraps.com you have to determine what type of vehicle you would want to use so you can create a design that would fit the shape of the car, truck or trailer. The design can either be fully covered or partial depending on your preference. Choose from a list of wrap shops in your area and ask for bids based on what you have designed. Once you have the best bid, ask the wrap shop to assign it over to an artist so it can be enhanced graphically and per the contours of your exact vehicle. During your design of the car wrap on-line, make sure to use bold and brilliant colors so you will stand out among many vehicles moving around. Use simple fonts as much as possible so your logo can easily be understood even with a slight glance. Remember that the vehicle will be moving most of the time so make sure it is clear, attractive and luminous so it can also be seen at night.

Vinyl Wrap instead of Paint

A brand-new Porsche Cayman is being turned from classic silver to bright green with a matte black hood . Just steps away, a 1972 Chevy Impala convertible is being covered in mirror-like chrome. There’s no paint involved, the cars are being wrapped in big sheets of vinyl. And on the wall above where the wrapping is being done is a sign that says this: “Paint is dead.”

Commercial vehicles wrapped in vinyl to become rolling billboards are fairly common these days. But this year has seen a boom in private cars getting wrapped in vinyl. No splashy logos, often no graphics at all. Just color and special effects such as carbon, matte black or anything that makes the car stand out. A BMW is wrapped in matte orange, an Audi wrapped in a gray metallic vinyl, expensive cars are not being re-painted but wrapped. “The finish is flawless,” said Smith, an expert at a local wrap shop. “You don’t have to worry about the paint running, about it being wet-sanded badly.” Like most others that are in the wrapping vehicles, the bulk of their work is wrapping commercial vehicles, turning them into moving billboards. But more and more, wrap shops are wrapping private vehicles in vinyl. Sometimes it’s for a look you can’t get with paint — consider a chrome Mercedes or a Saab covered with white alligator vinyl. Other times, it’s to preserve the original paint’s integrity; “You can’t take a Ferrari off the lot and paint it green,” said one installer, you’ll knock a lot of dollars off its value.

Anything is Possible!

The owner of the Porsche wanted a green one, Smith said, but that would take close to a year to get. So he bought a silver one and is having it wrapped in green. The key is that the silver paint is still intact, underneath. 3M, one of the largest makers of vinyl wrap, guarantees that it won’t leave any glue or residue during the first five years. After that,” Smith said, “it starts to get a bit permanent.” The price is dependent on the square feet being covered, but vehicles are in the $3,000 range. That’s more than some paint jobs, less than others.

“We haven’t scratched the surface,” Smith said, using a questionable phrase for someone in his business. “We can do refrigerators, boats, bikes, jet skis …”. He actually put one on a refrigerator — his own. Smith covered his refrigerator with a black matte finish because his wife was tired of the kids’ fingerprints on the shiny surface. “Within three to five years,” Smith said, “wrapping a car will roll off everyone’s tongue as often as painting.”

Soni had a couple of reasons to have his leased BMW 135i covered with matte orange. He owns The Party Shop and when he opens up a few temporary Halloween stores this fall, he’ll have the phone numbers put on his rolling pumpkin.

Earlier this year, TKO Graphix wrapped a Toyota Hybrid for Indy School on Wheels. The vehicle was a raffle prize, which was driven to events and publicly displayed for several months. There was ample opportunity for the finish to be damaged, but when the winner took possession of the vehicle, they had a brand new bright and shiny prize. When the wrap — promoting School on Wheels — was removed, the vehicle’s unblemished finish remained intact.

Why Wrap, not Paint?

Cost – If we eliminate discount paint jobs, which often reduce pricing by eliminating proper preparation, wraps or decals may be more cost effective. In this HowMuchDoes.com article, painting a car may range from under $1000 to $8000. Decaling or wrapping a car can run $500 to $3000+.

Resale Value – Protecting the manufacturer’s original finish maintains the resale value of the vehicle, and the saleability of basic colors is much higher than exotic colors. Do you love bright chrome yellow? Does your company use pink vehicles? Vivid colors may limit potential buyers in the resale market. Buy a white vehicle, wrap it to your heart’s desire, and have a white vehicle, again, when it’s time to resell. As Listverse explains—

“Ever drive’ down the road and notice most of the cars you see are colored in four colors (mostly black, white, silver, or gray)? Part of the reason why is resale value — people who want to resell their car later know they are far more likely to find a buyer if the car is one of these common colors.”

Time — Especially if you have a complicated multi-vector design — a wrap can be done in days; paint may take much longer.

Coverage — Using paint limits vehicle advertising to the painted surfaces. By incorporating window film in a wrap, the entire surface of the vehicle may be used for promotion.

Vehicle graphics don’t replace the need for paint, and aren’t always the best option. However, vehicle graphics should be considered. Research the options and make the best decision based on use and needs. Before painting a vehicle, compare vehicle graphics to painting – you may be pleasantly surprised. We’d be happy to share ideas.

The good news is that whatever kind of vehicle you wrap, it’s going to stand out. Period. Whether you’re in a Honda Civic or a custom Lotus, if it’s wrapped, you’ll definitely get extra attention. The best vehicle for you will depend on the needs of your individual business. Still, we love sharing our knowledge, so we broke down some of our favorite kinds of vehicles into a few categories to keep in mind when you’re shopping for your next wrap…..

Wild and weird

Chevy HHR, Toyota Scion, Honda Element. There’s definitely been a trend in square vehicles in recent years. Whether you love the angular look or you’re not a fan of the boxy shapes, you can’t deny that the unusual shapes of these cars stand out . Everyone has an opinion! In addition to being a little unusual, the broad sides of these vehicles give them a somewhat unique place in the world of vehicle wraps. You gain the fuel efficiency and maneuverability of a smaller car, but the broad canvas size of a mobile billboard! Definitely a win-win situation. Because they tend to have less curves than other vehicles, it becomes very easy to use the wide spaces for big, colorful graphics.

Curvy and Cute

Mini, VW Bug, PT Cruiser and of course the Fiat 500 and Smart Car. These rounded vehicles may be a little trickier when it comes to the wrap installation, but they pack a powerful marketing punch when they hit the road. Turning one of these cute cars into a vehicle wrap is a great way to harness their already potent attention grabbing powers. These are cars that either stand out for their coolness or because of some game associated with them. For example, remember all of those backseat games of “punch bug” (or according to my little cousin, its newer incarnation “PT cruiser bruiser”)? These car wraps look especially great when they’re wrapped in a full pattern. “Punch bug yellow!” how boring; try “punch bug leopard print!”

Big, Bold and Brawny

Sprinter vans, Ford F250, Hummers. Enough fooling around with those silly little vehicles, you’re in the market for something BIG. Sure trucks and vans are fairly common, but when you wrap an automotive giant like a truck with a full size crew cabin or an enormous Sprinter van your sheer size will definitely get you noticed. These vehicles offer the most space for larger than life graphics for your vehicle advertisement. One enterprising client told us that he’s planning on having his truck lifted to make it stand out even more!

Good Design is Key!

This ad for AST (Advanced Security Technologies) on a windowed van can be easily seen from a distance and it looks classy and interesting from the street. A great combination of good design and creative positioning. Another example from is from the UK, this wrap for a printing company is loud enough to get a lot of attention but understated and elegant enough to convert viewers into customers. This design is stark contrast to the huge-text, in-you-face, explosion-and-fire designs of most commercial wraps on the road. No one has ever been annoyed into becoming a customer.

Good design in vehicle wraps is surprisingly hard to find. A clever, well-designed vehicle wrap is an easy and immediate way to set your ad campaign miles ahead of everything else out there.

Be entertaining!

All advertising must be either entertaining or informative. Anything else will be immediately forgotten at best, and at worse will hurt your brand. With mobile and outdoor media like vehicle wraps, there’s usually not enough time to inform so you have to entertain. If you can get drivers laughing and pointing, they’ll talk about it for days and become evangelists for your brand as well as new customers. An easy way to be entertaining is to put advertising unexpected places. In this economy, almost everyone is ready to cut a deal. If you have an idea to put an ad in an unusual spot, don’t be afraid to so some digging and find someone who can say yes. You may even end up saving a lot of money. Here are a couple more examples:

Think outside of cars and buses

Everyone’s seen mobile ads on the side of a bus, but trains are a relatively untapped medium for ad placement. They also offer some interesting creative opportunities that buses so not offer. Imagine the entire army of Verizon’s support engineers as a part of their “we never stop working for you” campaign or a giant shark eating up the track for a zoo promotion. . Here are a few more creative ideas, some of these from Japan.

Design your wrap like a huge ad!

Come up with a creative idea, and keep it simple yet eye catching. The whole point of a vehicle wrap is to catch the viewer’s attention while they are in motion. Regardless of the overall messaging, be sure that your company brand or logo is easily visible against the background imagery. After all, the entire point of a car or truck wrap is to advertise your brand or product. Make sure people know what it is! Don’t place logos between panels or half on a window and a quarter panel, because the different materials will often print irregularly, and your logo will end up looking incorrect.

What we can learn from the big guys

Around the year 2000 I was working for a large internet agency and we got involved with FEDEX, they were creating the first on-line tracking system for international logistics of shipping packages based on bar code readers, revolutionary for those days since it was all EDI or in other words a nightmare. Along with it they changed their brand from Fedaral Express to simply Fedex, it was already a household name to “Fedex it” if you wanted to make sure it got there. New logo and and brand image and it went on anything that moves packages around the world.

What we can learn from this is don’t be afraid to change and get your message across on your vehicle, be it you have just your van or truck or an entire fleet of vehicles to advertise on. There are no secrets and while you design a wrap for your vehicle or your fleet, keep in mind what you do and how you want to be perceived by your potential customers. If you deliver bread around, say so, illustrate it with a picture of bread and plug in your logo, web site name and phone number. For most of us, the kiss method works the best, people look at your wrap and understand what you do in a second, that’s all you get when you drive by. Use background images for more detailed look of what you do, plumber put a big picture of a drain or a faucet in your background and splash your name in front of it.

Take advantage of that moving billboard!

Most of us will have a van, truck or trailer with a flat surface to advertise on. This can make the design and application of the wrap fairly easy, you can create that awesome background and get your message across quite large with plenty of room to work with. But, if you do not need a van or truck for your business, think about the (fairly) unique vehicles out there on the road that stand out by themselves already and can create a unique messaging opportunity. Mini Coopers, VW Bugs, Smart cars and Hummers are very popular for their shapes: the more unusual the better. Hybrids are wonderful for conveying that your brand is concerned with the environment.

Here is an example of a well executed message from our friends at Loring Studios, a great background and large message, environment anybody?

If you are a local business keep your website and your telephone number visible and big. Beware of having any essential information, including logos and text, wrap around corners and edges. Instead, keep messaging in easily readable areas and be sure to put logos and taglines on all sides of the vehicle.